Syrian Air Defenses Confront Israeli Missile Attack

TEHRAN (FNA)- Syrian air defenses have intercepted Israeli missiles targeting the capital city of Damascus, according to reports.

Syria’s official news agency SANA reported that Israeli warplanes launched the attack from above the occupied Golan Heights shortly before midnight on Sunday.

“Most of the enemy missiles were shot down before reaching their targets,” SANA quoted a military source as saying.

The report added that the military was still verifying possible outcomes of the Israeli attacks.

The Israeli military also released a statement claiming that its fighter jets struck targets belonging to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement south of Damascus.

“In the Adeliyah region, outside of Damascus, an Islamic Jihad compound was struck, used as a hub of Islamic Jihad’s activity in Syria,” it claimed.

A few hours later, Islamic Jihad released a statement saying that two of its members had been killed in the airstrikes.

Israel has frequently launched airstrikes against Syria while the country has been preoccupied with fighting a nearly nine-year foreign-backed militancy which had once swept over large parts of the country.

Tel Aviv has long despised the Syrian government, led by President Bashar al-Assad, for its support for Palestinian and Lebanese resistance groups countering Israel.

The missile attacks against Damascus come as Israel also launched multiple airstrikes against what it claimed were Islamic Jihad positions in Gaza early on Monday.

At least half a dozen Palestinians were reportedly injured in the attacks.

The bombings took place after Palestinian resistance groups launched multiple rocket strikes against Israel in retaliation for the brutal killing of a Palestinian man East of Khan Yunis earlier on Sunday.